Step 17: Stuffing

Step 18: Finishing Touches

I stuck a smile on the middle seam on the nose, and that seemed to have worked rather well (its in the last couple pictures). I just used a strip of b...

This instructable will show you how to make a Tux costume. For those who don’t know, Tux is the mascot of the Linux operating system. I wanted to make a Tux costume for one of my school spirit days, but hours of searching for instructions proved fruitless, so I decided to make one myself. Essentially, this was created by blowing up the plans for a stuffed animal, with a few modifications, so it can be further modified for a wide variety of other things.

Note that this project will require a significant time investment, 20-30 hours or so, and costs >$60 depending on where you get your fabric, so make sure you have the time and money to devote to this before starting. This project is best for someone who has some sewing experience, though it does not require anything fancy.

Step 1: Plans

The first step is to find (or make) plans for the stuffed animal version of your costume. The Tux plans I found and used were from free-penguin.org, specifically this pdf . Print two copies of the plans out, and cut out each piece from one copy. The other copy is so that you can scale the pieces properly later.

Step 2: Scaling

Once you have your pieces cut out, it is time to scale them to your height. I am approximately 5’ 10”, and the plans showed the stuffed animal to be about 30 cm in height. I scaled my pieces by 6, which ended up being a tad short, perhaps due to errors from my scaling method. For scaling, I taped together sheets of newspaper, projected the pieces onto it, and traced the shadow generated. To get the right dimensions, look at the scale given on the plans, and multiply that by 6 to get the correct size for a costume. Then project each piece on the wall, and adjust the projecting equipment until the shadow measures what it is calculated to be. After tracing each shadow, cut them out of the newspaper and set them aside.